The badly decomposed body of 18 year-old Cheri Lynn Smith was found dumped in the underbrush of a British Columbia regional park. It was September 1990. Cheri had been savagely beaten to death three months prior. She was six months pregnant at the time of her death. Her unknown murderer has never been brought to justice. Cheri was a prostituted woman.
Earlier this month Cheri’s mother Linda Smith bravely told the federal government’s Justice Committee about her daughter’s tragic and horrific death during a hearing about the government’s proposed prostitution law, Bill C-36.
Mrs. Smith’s account, given by video conference from Regina, SK on July 8, can only be described as every parent’s worst nightmare.
Linda Smith’s testimony, courtesy of the Parliament of Canada’s website:
In 1990 our daughter Cheri Lynn Smith died. She was murdered. She was 18 years old and six months pregnant. We loved her very much and miss her every day. Our home was a happy one. As a child growing up, she did well in school, played organized sports, played the flute and the piano, and was in the school band and the city youth choir. Her natural leadership abilities were noticed and encouraged in the various groups she was involved with.
After grade 11, during the summer, Cheri attended the Regina exhibition with her brother and some friends. There she met a young man. He was 18 and she was 17. A few days later she told us she was in love with him and was leaving home to be with him. She said she would be back home for the start of school, her grade 12 year. We tried everything we knew to convince her not to leave, but she went with him anyway. She had no idea what he had planned for her.
Just a couple of days later she found herself in downtown Edmonton selling her body to men who used and abused her. In fact, her very first trick gave her a beating and stole her money. This was cause for the first of many beatings she took from her pimp. This is how he controlled her. He would romance her with sweet words, gifts, and sex, and then give her a beating and tell her it was her fault. Then she would do anything she could to gain back his favour. Many times she told us, “I love him. He needs me. I'll do whatever it takes to keep this relationship going.” He decided where and when she worked, how much money she had to make, even who she could talk to.
At the beginning, to be sure that Cheri would be dependent on him, he took her from her home town, Regina, and put her out on the unfamiliar streets of Edmonton, where she knew no one to call for help. He moved her to Calgary, Winnipeg, back home to Regina, and finally to Victoria, B.C., each time to isolate her from us, her family.
Cheri became pregnant while prostituting. She had no idea who the father was or even when she had become pregnant. By this time she had chlamydia, a sexually transmitted infection. She was malnourished and worn out. She believed, naively, that once the baby came she wouldn't have to work anymore, that her pimp would get a job and she would have the happy home she desperately wanted. So she still wouldn't leave him and come home.
The police apprehended Cheri in Calgary and Winnipeg. Because she was under age, they just sent her home. Then her pimp came and got her. We received no help, no advice or direction from the police to help her.
Finally, when she was working in Regina, she was caught in a sting operation. She was arrested and charged with solicitation. We were so hopeful that on her court date the judge would put her in our custody, but Cheri didn't appear at court. Her pimp had moved her to Victoria, where again she knew no one who could help her and was cut off from us. In her phone calls home she was sounding more and more unhappy and talked about coming home, but then she disappeared.
On June 4 one of the young prostitutes who knew Cheri reported to the police in Victoria that she was missing. The police didn't believe her. Later the girl brought in Cheri's wallet and some personal correspondence. Then they drew up a missing person file on her. That's all they did. They didn't contact us. But the young prostitute did phone us to tell us that she didn't know where Cheri was and that she was very worried.
I went out to Victoria, looking for Cheri. I met the young girl who had called us, her pimp, and some other very young girls and their pimps. No one knew where Cheri was. I met with the police. My appearance seemed to stir them into action.
About four weeks later, on September 9, Cheri's body was found. The autopsy showed that she died on June 4. She had been beaten to death. Of course, her unborn child died with her.
No one has ever been charged with her murder, but it's still being investigated.
My hope is, as you have listened to our story, that you heard two things: firstly, we could do nothing to help our daughter get out of prostitution; and secondly, that she was psychologically controlled by her pimp, that she was not able to make the decisions needed to free herself.
Our tragic experience is not an anomaly. There are many parents like us, trying to help their daughters. There are many Cheris out there, controlled, abused, disposable.
Please do all you can to help them.
Mrs. Smith has found a way to bring good out of her daughter’s death. She has developed a presentation that she has delivered over 800 times in schools warning grades 6-8 female students about the danger of predators trying to recruit them into prostitution. She meets with parents to teach them the warning signs indicating their daughter is being recruited.
Both Mrs. Smith and her husband Ed Smith agree the new prostitution law will help protect young girls from becoming targets for sexual exploitation.
“The harsher penalties in Bill C-36 aimed at the purchasers of sex and the traffickers will make men think twice about purchasing sex, and deter the trafficker from what in the past has been easy money for them, with very little risk,” Mr. Smith told the Justice Committee after his wife had spoken.
“A sad fact is that if men were not willing to pay money for sex, our daughter would still be alive today. She would not have been a target for a trafficker who needed money to buy his drugs.”
“Bill C-36 will help protect innocent victims while deterring those who would prey on the most vulnerable in our society,” he said.